The end of the road

A few people have been asking me about the future of the blog, so it is about time that I officially addressed it. After a lot of thought and consideration, I’ve decided that my days of blogging are now over. It was a fun ride while it lasted, but all good things must come to an end at some point.

In a way, I’m surprised that I was able to keep up with it as long as I did. I first started reading sports card blogs in early 2008. I was very entertained by what I read and I thought that it would be fun to start my own blog, but I knew that it would be a challenge to find the free time to do it. Of course I eventually decided to start my own blog anyway. It was a fun experience. I love to write and share my opinions with people, so the blog was a natural outlet for me. Along the way, I was able to share my experiences as I jumped back in to the baseball card hobby and share my thoughts about the Rays amazing run to the 2008 World Series. And I was able to interact with many like-minded collectors all over the country and the world, including several people who I now consider to be friends.

But it was always difficult to find the time to blog. I have a relatively busy job and a wife at home. It was common for me to stay up for several hours after my wife went to sleep to either write blog posts or try to keep up with my collection. I wasn’t getting enough sleep and it would take a toll on me. And as my blog grew, the responsibilities that came along with it grew too. There was an increase in the number of comments on my posts and in the emails that I received. I tried to keep up with them all, but ultimately I failed. And then there were the trade requests. Looking back on it, I should’ve never started trading cards through the blog. I reached a point where I was getting multiple trade offers through email and several packages in the mail every day. Sometimes cards would arrive out of the blue from people who already had my address. I struggled and failed to keep up with it all.

By early 2009, it got to the point where keeping up with the blog and all of the responsibilities that went with it seemed like a second job. I’d spend all day working at my real job, and then come home and work all night blogging about cards. It wasn’t fun anymore. I’d set unrealistic goals for myself, like writing at least one blog post per day and trying to get to 100,000 hits in the first year – and those goals would only increase the pressure and decrease my level of fun.

At the same time, I became somewhat disenchanted with the card industry itself. The shenanigans that are going on internally within the card companies and at Beckett are well documented all over the internet. On a personal level, I’d buy multiple hobby boxes of cards per month, some of them simply so that I could video tape my breaks and write about them, and I’d almost always be disappointed with the cards that I received. And then the 2009 baseball card products started coming out, and I felt that every single one of them was totally unoriginal and uninteresting. I completely stopped buying new boxes and packs of cards, and now the only cards that I buy are singles (mostly of Evan Longoria) on eBay.

That’s not to say that every aspect of card collecting is negative. There are many positives too, and I’ve adapted my collecting habits to focus on the things that I enjoy the most. I loved collecting baseball cards when I was a kid, and I loved it when I resumed the hobby as an adult. I think that I’ll always stay somewhat involved in the hobby, even if it’s only to buy new Evan Longoria cards. But I’m never going to let card collecting dominate my life the way that it did while I was actively maintaining this blog. For me, reading about cards and spending about an hour a day looking at card listings on eBay and organizing my collection, is reasonable. Spending five or six hours a day on it is too much when there are other priorities in my life that are much more important.

Anyway, I first started to realize that I needed to cut back sometime in February. I somehow wrote 47 blog posts in January and 39 in February, and that was a pace that I knew that I could not maintain. By early March, I started to feel burned out, and I cut back. On the blog, I mentioned that I was busy planning a vacation, and that was true, but as you can see that was not the only reason for my decrease in posts. After I returned from my vacation at the end of March, I only wrote a few more blog posts. I began to think a lot about what the future of the blog would be. Originally, I thought that I’d continue blogging but just post a few times a week. But the more time I spent without blogging, the more I realized how much better I liked my life without the burden of my “second job”.

And so I recently decided to stop blogging altogether. Sure, there are topics that have come up that I’d really like to write about. But I have a feeling that if I started posting again, I’d get sucked back in and it wouldn’t be long before it was dominating my life again. It’s possible that I might start blogging again at some point in the future, but it won’t be any time soon. The blog itself will stay up, and anyone who has enjoyed my writing can continue to visit it and read my old posts. And who knows, maybe someday you’ll come back and find that I’ve started writing again.

I’ll finish this up with a heartfelt “thank you” to everyone who has read my blog posts, left a comment, sent me an email, traded cards with me, linked to the blog, or interacted with me in any other way since I started writing. It is because of you that my experience was enjoyable. You can continue to stay in touch with me through email or facebook. And of course, I’ll continue to read many card blogs, and you’ll still see comments from me on some of them. And now, in the immortal words of Porky Pig … “that’s all folks”!

Thank you for entertaining us collectors throughout your journey through the blogosphere and I hope you keep on collecting those Longoria’s! It was a pleasure to find your new posts frequently on my blog, and at that time, you were one of the best! Thanks again

Dave- ‘Fielder’s Choice’ had one hell of a ride. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and collection with us over the last year. If and when you come back to vacation in Florida let’s try to take in another game! I wish you and Rebbecca well. Brian

All the best to you and your wife. You were definetly an all or nothing guy that it gave it his all. If you ever can find a balance and happy medium I know the collecting public would ebrace your return and enjoy the perspective you bring to the Hobby. Take care.

I hope this doesn’t also mean the end to your card-collecting. I still have many Rays cards to send, although no Longoria autos! Keep in touch, and don’t be surprised if a stray package makes it to your doorstep from any of us.

Sorry to see you go. You will be missed on the internets! I was always entertained by your writing and, honestly, your box breaks made me feel better about my less than stellar box breaks :) I’ll keep an eye out for you for any odd ball or local Longoria’s that pop up down here.

Thank you very much for being part of the Hobby blogosphere. It was fun reading what you had to say. Take care, good luck…everyone has already said what I wanted to say.

But take care and good luck. Thank you for letting us be part of your journey. If you ever decide to come back (I’m leaving you on the Blogroll, so I’ll be watching), be sure that we will all welcome you back with open arms.

As you can tell from the above comments, you will certainly be missed. I feel like our time just so overlapped, but I thoroughly enjoyed your posts. I wish you the best of luck in the future and trust that you enjoy your increased quality time with your wife.

All the best man – you were a great trading partner, and a fun blog to read. I wish you all the luck in life and Longoria, and hope the Rays and Penn State bring you much happiness… except for when they play my Yankees and Iowa.

Wow, Im gonna miss you man! You were the person who got me into the blogging world, was big into youtube breaks and I stumbled upon one of your vids and I clicked your blog and loved it! Then I discovered Mario over at W.H and then I decided to make my own! Ive met many friends because of you. And in the long run this made me get into TTM autographs! Dave If it wasn’t for you, I would have never had things to look forward to everyday, weather its trading, blogging, getting TTMs,just the simple event of receiving the mail has become the highlight of the day in my house now! And Ive now started making my own youtube videos. Id like to thank you for this Dave. God Bless. – Anthony

You were THE reason that John and I started collecting again and decided to start our own blog. I think we too realized the same time crunch that you experienced and we have the fraction of the following that you have! Thanks always for the inspiration and don’t be a stranger!

I have always enjoyed your perspective. good luck moving on and kudos to you for realizing that this is a hobby and not an endeavor that should consume ones life. Hobbies are here to give us a chance to relax and enjoy ourselves, not make our lives more complicated.

Sorry to hear it. I am starting a new blog called torii and cardboard at http://www.toriihunter.wordpress.com that would be great if you guys could come and check it out as we are doing some reviews and small contests in the near future, also if you wouldn’t mind adding me to your blogroll so I could get new readers that way I would appreiciate the support. Thanks again